Comments on: Newman swimming in a budget that’s a sea of red

By: Dogs breakfast

Dogs breakfast — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 06:49:14 +0000

“The reason? Revenue is flat, while costs are growing inexorably. All the states and territories have a narrow tax base, and Queensland is no exception. Highly reliant on the GST and stamp duty, the states have little flexibility when it comes to raising new revenue.”

It’s a good article Ben, but don’t the states own the minerals?

Isn’t Qld one of the gangbuster mining states?

Are they actually getting a fair return form the royalties, or is it the case, as pretty much everyone suspects, that we basically give our mineral wealth away.

Qld should be swimming in revenue, and quite frankly mining companies are sufficiently cashed up to be providing their own infrastructure. Building coal loaders etc on the public teat should either be a money making venture (charging a profitable return on investment) or they should be built by the mining companies without public assistance.

I don’t know whether, as one contributor puts it, a lot of the mining royalties are put back into mining infrastructure, but if so they are just being played by the mining giants.

Nothing new there.

Given that this is prima facie evidence that state governments of both persuasions couldn’t make a profit selling a nugget of gold they found in there back pocket, it certainly adds weight to the need for a mining profits tax.

I wonder why the Feds haven’t thought to bring in a mining profits tax.

Oh, that’s right! D’oh!

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 06:19:25 +0000

The LNP and those deluded enough to vote and support them will end up choking on the very pond scum they create. It’s gunna be fun to watch.-

By: Edward James

Edward James — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 05:23:53 +0000

Tax payers have voted to dismiss Labor political grubs, do not fear the green slime it is no surprise to anyone who watched alien or the exorcist we know when you destroy parasites there is heaps of green slime! We may even drown in it, but to survive we must keep fighting, disregard the concerns about cats and dogs, exercise your vote and dismantle Labor to the very end ! Edward James

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 03:53:43 +0000

Personally. I think it’s terrific to see the big bucket of slime that Qlders voted to hang over their heads start to drip, drip, drip. When it really tips it’s gonna get ugly, but entertaining.

By: sottile6

sottile6 — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 02:10:28 +0000

Michael Crook’s characterisation of the Bligh government’s infrastructure spending is not correct. Campbell Newman is responsible for the road tunnels, except for Airport link which was the only road tunnel the state government planned and built. However they constructed busways to the south east, the north and to the eastern suburbs of Brisbane which can also be converted to a tram system if necessary. This infrastructure spending was necessary. I can only speak about Brisbane as that’s where I live. I am very glad they invested this much in public transport and planned and organised the cross river rail project which is also necessary. The idiots in charge now have scaled back this project so that it will be less functional. More could be done on public transport but the backward looking LNP will certainly not do it.

By: cpds

cpds — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 01:09:05 +0000

Correction! Comments are here

By: beachcomber

beachcomber — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 00:21:51 +0000

“Just like your family budget, we need to tighten our belt….” Campbell Newman is not tightening his belt. He is sacking the children and selling the dog.

By: Gavin Moodie

Gavin Moodie — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 22:15:24 +0000

I agree with MATTSUI: the states have considerable scope to raise new revenue. In addition to MATTSUI’s proposals I propose a proper land tax and joining the rest of the OECD in restoring probate tax.

By: Pitt Peter

Pitt Peter — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 12:39:29 +0000

Just keep in mind that QLD State accounts include the cost of public servants superannuation entitlements and other States do not. So when you compare QLD debts with (say) NSW remember that QLD numbers include this gigantic liability whereas NSW keeps it off balance sheet (just pretending it doesn’t exisit.

By: Hugh (Charlie) McColl

Hugh (Charlie) McColl — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 12:35:10 +0000

In Townsville, Clive Palmer is a nickel/cobalt baron.

By: mattsui

mattsui — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 11:43:53 +0000

One way of increasing revenue would be to endorse mining tax reform and carbon credit trading. The Qld Government could easily make a packet in the next decade……. it won’t happen because a certain coal barron bankrolled Newman and co’s campaign.
The Queensland Government is the thin end of the Tea Party/ US Republican wedge. Complain loudly about debt and spending while bringing the local economy to a grinding halt at the expense of future generations and refusing to levy taxes on those who can actually afford to pay.

Expect more behaviour like this from the “right” of Oz politics in the near future.

By: Hamis Hill

Hamis Hill — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 08:38:08 +0000

If Health and Education are the “Superior Goods” that Ross Gittins declares them to be then surely they increase the income of those who purchase them, which income then gets spent on goods which do increase GST revenue. Oh for the days when the economy was the domain of moral philosophers from the Age of Enlightenment who actually cared to write for the whole population and not just a few, blinkered “experts” who cannot communicate with ordinary citizens.
There was a book published a few decades ago called “The New Science of Complexity” in which a Nobel Prize winner in Physics, Gell Mann?, was able to get a team of physicists and economists together in the same room and they actually spoke to each other after some initial resistance.
They formed the Santa Fe Institute with the objective of actually understanding the economy.
Whatever happened it is clear that the economy can no longer be left in the hands of the economists.
And the Good of Education as Adam Smith pointed out is indispensable to the proper running of a free Market economy. This cannot happen while ever economists are incapable of enlightening the general public and one doubts whether they even care to educate the public at all, where is the incentive?
Now it seems that for the sake of partisan ideology the conservative State administrations seek to contract their economies, an incoming Abbott administration will do the same and a Depression will automatically follow. Capice!

By: Edward James

Edward James — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 08:19:39 +0000

Thanks Michael. I expect you may have perceived the reason I stand alone, is because I am some what limited in my understanding of how politics serves the proletariat! That would be correct. I am a part of that class of people, who have realised they have been deceived into believing our elected representatives exercise their influence in the best interest of we the peoples! I am reasonably politically aware I have spent a few years savings running political ads. We are none of us well represented! Edward James 0243419140

By: michael crook

michael crook — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 07:59:32 +0000

Hi Edward. no, the “Left” faction actually threw me out because I had the temerity to stand for preselection against a (right faction) sitting member. I was supporting the ALP’s own policies on Industrial safety and working hours, but sadly noone on the left had ever worked in industry so they didn’t know what I was talking about. Sad, but they lost an activist, two actually, because while I went to Venezuela and immediately on returning joined Socialist Alliance, (love the Chavez reforms, especially the empowerment of women) my wife left the ALP and is now on the Q!ueensland Greens management committee, and very very active. There aren’t too many activists left in the ALP sadly.

By: Edward James

Edward James — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 07:17:42 +0000

G day, Michael Crook. Your use of the words Personal enrichment is a good discription of why our democratic process Nationally and top to bottom has become so dysfunctional. I note you have left the ALP. Was that because you are tired of the number of members who are deaf dumb and blind to what is actually happening in our grass roots communities? Edward James

By: Edward James

Edward James — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 06:12:03 +0000

How the hell do pay as you go tax payers grapple with the fact that elected reps like Kevin Rudd spend time on line engaging in social chit chat, while sitting in our Federal Parliament? I don’t know! Vertical fiscal imbalance…. What??? Sounds like garbage to me. Living beyond our means is simple enough for Australian taxpayers to grasp. It won’t work! Incomes and outgoings. Seriously why are Australians being saddled with interest payments on our government borrowings ? On and on it goes. Capacity to pay ? What I have never accepted this garbage from our elected representatives. Am I alone in my dissent? Why must we be a nation of borrowers ? We have all sorts of wealth, we have the capacity to feed ourselves, WTF is going on? Edward James

By: michael crook

michael crook — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 05:43:26 +0000

What a good article, very informative. While I appreciated the point that Queensland actually was spending money on infrastructure, sadly it is the way in which this was spent that is the problem.

Large road and tunnel projects, even though some of these were nominally “private” cost the Queensland Government a lot of money and the tendering processes on some of them were very very questionable. Even more questionable was the need for some of them such as “airportlink” which will doubtless experience the same problems of underuse as the Clem 7. The addiction of Queensland to providing a capital city built for cars instead of people has turned Brisbane into a carbon copy of every US city. It is not pretty. The public transport is abysmal and expensive.

The cash from the sale of assets and royalties has not only been poured back into some very dodgy projects (eg Ted Smout Bridge, airport roundabout, infrastructure for mines access) but in the case of royalties has gone back to aid the miners who paid it. We have nothing to show for the sale of ports, rail, forests and electricity retail, and, further have lost the income stream forever.

The historians may well decide that the Beattie and Bligh Labor governments reached levels of corruption and incompetence unseen since the Joh days. As an ex ALP member I can attest to the refusal of elected ALP Members of Parliament to even consider governing according to their own objectives and policies. They were, with very few exceptions, devoid of any ideology except that of personal enrichment.

Until the AWUs factional hold on the party is removed there is no coming back for the Queensland ALP.